


Back to the Start

by idrilhadhafang



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: #LetPoeHaveHisBroodyDreamMan2020, Banter, Established Relationship, Finding seashells, First Dates, Good Kylo Ren, Innuendo, Kylo Ren Redemption, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Finn/Rey (Star Wars), Nostalgia, Possessive Kylo Ren, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Resurrection, Soft Kylo Ren, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Walks On The Beach, if slightly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:28:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23222521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: The resurrected Kylo Ren (a.k.a. Ben Solo) and Poe Dameron return to Kylo’s birthplace of Chandrila for their first date.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Kylo Ren
Kudos: 8
Collections: The_Multishipper_Post_TROS_Happy_Place_Collection, Trope Bingo: Round Fourteen





	Back to the Start

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Free Space — Fluff
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing. 
> 
> Author’s Notes: Because a first date between Poe and a resurrected Ben is too good to pass up. (And yes, Ben lives again in this one-shot. Don’t @ me)
> 
> Also, this is some serious tooth-rotting fluff. Fair warning. Title from “The Scientist” by Coldplay.

A couple that’s not them would have gone out to dinner, or at least something like that, but Poe knows that they aren’t the usual couple, him and Kylo. He knows that much.  
  
Ben doesn’t call himself Ben anymore. He’s said that he has a distaste for that name, being named after someone he didn’t know at all. Poe sometimes wonders if things would have been different for Kylo if he didn’t have certain expectations to live up to, being a Skywalker, a Solo, and an Organa all at once. Not to mention the hint of Palpatine blood in him that connects him and Rey. The dyad was broken as a result of Rey’s temporary death on Exegol, as well as Kylo’s, but it doesn’t make their current bond any less strong.  
  
Still, Poe thinks, he would love Kylo no matter what name he went by, no matter where he came from. He knows it, believes it, deep in his bones, in his heart.  
  
Right now, they’re preparing for their first date. Even that’s enough to send a certain thrill through Poe. Not only is Kylo home, from the World Between Worlds, but they’re going on a _date._ A date, of all things. They’re still trying to navigate aspects of their relationship, and Kylo’s been distraught about what he’s done to Poe (not to mention literally everything else). Poe knows it’s difficult, but at the same time, he doesn’t want anyone else. There isn’t another Kylo — another Ben, with that irrepressibly radiant grin and expressive brown eyes and endearing snark and that angel that Poe knows lives in his heart even though he doesn’t acknowledge it often. Poe doesn’t know how he’s gotten so lucky to have him. At all.  
  
 _Fingers brushing his cheek. “Obi-Wan was a fool, but he was right that there is no such thing as luck. There is only the Force. Perhaps the Force finally let us find each other again.”_  
  
Poe can’t deny that.  
  
***  
  
“I trust you’ll watch over the Base while I’m gone?” Poe says to Finn.  
  
Finn’s been doing well too. It took him and Rey long enough to sort out their obliviousness (not to mention a cousin reveal regarding her and Kylo that had left her mortified when she realized she’d kissed her cousin, only for Poe and Finn to reassure her it was fine — though Rey had sworn she was going to kill Poe for putting the image of Leia kissing her brother in her head), but they’re dating. Finn didn’t take Kylo’s return well at first, but they’ve reached a sort of truce (though Finn has said explicitly that he cares deeply about Poe and doesn’t want Kylo breaking his heart again).  
  
Finn nods, smiles faintly. “Deal, General.”  
  
“I knew you and Rey were the right choices,” Poe says lightly. “Keeping the kids in line.”  
  
Rey laughs. “Go. Your boyfriend’s waiting for you.”  
  
Poe grins at her. She can still get on his nerves, but she’s got a heart of gold underneath.  
  
Poe walks over towards Kylo, and if his walk gets a little faster, if his heart starts beating a little faster as a result of just being near this beautiful, brave man that he loved and lost and found again? He doesn’t mind the Resistance seeing, or knowing. Not really.  
  
“So all at once, the Resistance are your kids,” Kylo says. His hand entwines in Poe’s, and Poe squeezes back, feeling his heart speed up in anticipation.  
  
“I have to look after them,” Poe says lightly. “They’re good as.”  
  
“Aren’t you a little young to be their father?” Kylo teases.  
  
“You’re a charmer,” Poe says. He’s not young, not really — thirty-three’s somewhere in the middle, and he can notice his hair getting gray in some places. But the way Kylo speaks to him, looks at him, touches him...it’s like he thinks Poe is radiant, beautiful.  
  
Kylo continues. “Of course, you’d be the...not only attractive but breathtakingly beautiful father. The sort anyone would want.”  
  
“Unfortunately for them,” Poe says lightly, “I’m spoken for.”  
  
“Good. You’re mine, General Dameron.” The squeeze of his hand isn’t like squeezing his ass (Poe has a feeling Kylo is still, ironically enough, too meek to do that), but it sends an electric thrill through Poe along the lines of if Kylo had left a hickey on his neck, or squeezed his ass, or anything like that.  
  
He decides that he likes it when Kylo gets a little possessive. A little. Not controlling — there’s a difference — but definitely a little possessive.  
  
Even as they board the Falcon, Kylo falters a bit, like he isn’t quite prepared to see his father’s ship again. The way he looks at it; there’s such awe there, such amazement, and it’s Poe’s presence that keeps him steady.  
  
***  
  
In the end, they set a course for Chandrila. The oceans are beautiful, and Poe supposes that even though a day by the seaside is cliché, it still works. They disembark when they land, Kylo still exhilarated from being at the controls of the Falcon in a way that strikes Poe as sweetly endearing. He’s smiling, and he looks so radiant, so incandescent, that Poe can swear that he’s grinning as well, just looking at him. It’s how Ben should have been, Poe thinks. The scar that Rey gave him is faded — some things the World Between Worlds can’t fix — but Poe finds it’s just a small detail next to how beautiful his redeemed Knight is.  
  
“Can I just say,” Kylo says. “It feels good to pilot her for the first time.”  
  
Poe steps near him, still smiling. “I thought you’d be jealous that I got to pilot her.”  
  
“No,” Kylo says. “I’m actually impressed that you managed to break the laws of hyperspace with that ship. It’s like it can only happen to you. You, Poe Dameron.”  
  
Poe snorts. “Looks like I have something to brag about to Rey later," he says lightly. “ ‘Yes, Rey, my boyfriend’s impressed I broke the laws of hyperspace, so you can stop ragging on me for my piloting skills!’”  
  
Kylo laughs. Stars, he’s beautiful when he laughs.  
  
The seaside’s calm, beautiful. Even as the waves lap against the shore, Poe looks over towards Kylo, struck by how at peace he looks, just for a change. The off-white Resistance fatigues, in contrast to his black robes and cloak. The way that the wind ruffles his hair.  
  
“I haven’t been back to this place in years,” Kylo says. “My parents used to take me there when I was small. Aunt Mon would go with us, when she had time, and talk about how the shells were relics that the ocean had washed ashore.”  
  
“Didn’t think of that,” Poe says. He squats down, picks up a shell — it’s rusty red in color where it begins, from the corners, but it gets a softer rose color as it progresses. It’s almost like Kylo himself — it isn’t as menacing when you really take a look at it. "I really like this one.”  
  
“It’s...me, somehow.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Kylo smiles faintly.  
  
Poe continues. “Of course it is. I love all of you, Kylo — your Light and your Dark. It’s part of you. It’s like...one of those roses. Just because it has thorns doesn’t mean it isn’t beautiful.”  
  
Kylo seems to be genuinely taken aback. Has anyone called him beautiful? Said explicitly that they love him, even with all his Dark as well as his Light?  
  
Then, “You always saw the best of others, didn’t you? Seeing the beauty, when they couldn’t see it themselves...”  
  
“I don’t want anyone else, Kylo. I want _you.”_ Poe strokes a lock of hair away from Kylo’s face before standing on tip-toe (their height difference is thrilling and irritating all at once) to kiss his scar — the long scar running down his cheek.  
  
“The feeling’s more than mutual,” Kylo says. “I don’t want anyone else. You’re a gift, Poe.” A beat. “And I don’t think we’ve gotten to collecting shells yet, or anything. I want to show you everything I did back at Chandrila.”  
  
“Wherever you go,” Poe says lightly, “I follow.”  
  
They collect shells, going over different, unique shapes and colors and quirks, Kylo exclaiming in delight at times when he finds one. And Poe finds that detail, that reclaimed delight in things, to make him smile just seeing it, hearing it. Around Kylo, he is home — and he wants just about everyone, in the end, to know it.


End file.
